© Penelope Gan – All Rights Reserved – Kuala Lumpur, MALAYSIA

I am HIV positive.

It’s not an easy phrase to say. Yet in April 2009, six brave people stood tall and proud and uttered these simple but profound words that would change their world.

In a country where HIV/AIDS cases were only publicly acknowledged and reported for the last 23 years, and where more importantly discrimination remains the main ‘killer’ for people living with HIV+, the notion of recording uncensored testaments by people living with HIV+ was unheard off.

Yet, through faith, perseverance, sensitivity, respect, responsibility and belief this project evolved from a few scratchy lines of far and between emails dating back to October 2008 between myself and the Malaysian AIDS Council (MAC) to one that has to date helped raised MYR 6 million in 5 months.

From an independent third party standpoint, the HIV/AIDS issue is no more than statistics which ironically is read far less than GDP figures, unemployment rates, road death tolls and even the latest EPL scores and winning lottery numbers.

Since the first HIV/AIDS cases were publicly reported in 1986 by the Ministry of Health, 84,630 HIV infections have been reported in this country and 11,384 people have AIDS as at December 31, 2008. The majority of new HIV infections are found in adults aged between 20 to 39 years, with transmission from intravenous drug usage (IDU) being the number one cause followed by infections via heterosexual intercourse. Although those with HIV/AIDS are predominantly male, the number of HIV+ infections amongst women has been increasing.

Being a woman myself, never has these words rung truer and deeper …

“Due to gender norms and inequalities, many women and girls lack the social and economic power to control key aspects of their lives, particularly sexual matters. As a result, women are in a difficult, and often impossible, situation when it comes to negotiating with their partners over abstinence, fidelity, or condom use.”

(Excerpt from: UNAIDS, 2006. Increase Women’s Control over HIV Prevention, Issue 4)

… as I sat in their bare and dimly lit kitchens and homes, documenting their lives.

Of the two women who welcomed me into their homes, lives, intimate secrets and dreams… both were ‘victims’ of circumstances – contracting HIV+ from life partners that were IDUs. When I walked into this photo-project, I had imagined the women to be bitter, resentful and possibly wallowing in self-pity but I was repeatedly proven wrong. Far from my own personal cynic outlook of things, these women living with HIV+ were spirited, positive and full of zest. What surprises me most was that although they live on to shoulder the burden of raising their children single-handedly with little means,  balancing their health related issues and faced with societal unforgiving discrimination and stigma, they showed no remorse or anger having contracted the infections through irresponsible husband and has coined the term “love disease”.

Their ‘hopes and dreams’ which includes witnessing the graduation and marriage of their children, to me, does not have a tinge of far fetched ambition, but I soon realised that while it relates to matters we take for granted, time is an essence with these brave women and though they may possess will power that could move mountains, their spirits are constantly dampen by their physical inability and unnecessary hurdles posed by us who do not and/or refuses to understand.

By standing tall and speaking from their hearts, these women hopes to spread the message of awareness and to inspire others that are living of HIV+ that it is still a life worth fighting for.

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The multimedia photoessays of  “Voices of People Living with HIV+” was released for selective viewing for fundraising purposes in May 2009 and will be made available only on the Malaysian AIDS Council website in due course. I would like to thank a personal friend of mine, Jimin Lai for having the faith in me and MAC to volunteer his time and photographic skills in this project as well.

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useful HIV/AIDS resources

The BODY |  WHO

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